A paper published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta titled “Corporate Landlords, Institutional Investors, and Displacement: Eviction Rates in Single-Family Rentals” finds that large corporate owners of single-family rental properties are more likely to file tenant evictions than small landlords. Certain firms backed by institutional investors had much higher eviction filing rates than other landlords.
The authors utilized data on eviction filings in Fulton County, GA (Atlanta) to examine the relationship between corporate ownership and eviction filings in the single-family rental market. Single-family homes with corporate owners are a larger share of the rental market than before the Great Recession. Eviction filings are a clear indicator of housing instability. The authors matched eviction court records to property-level (parcel) and neighborhood-level (census tract) data.
Twenty-two percent of Fulton County renters experienced eviction proceedings in 2015. Renters in multifamily properties faced eviction proceedings at a higher rate (25%) than renters in single-family homes (15%). Among single-family rental homes, eviction filings were influenced by the type of ownership of the home. An eviction filing was 8% more likely if the home was owned by a large corporate owner. A corporate owner was defined as an owner of more than 15 single-family properties. Some large corporate landlords with institutional investors were 18 to 19% more likely to file eviction notices than smaller landlords. In short, large corporate owners of single-family rental homes in Atlanta were more likely to file evictions and, as a result, more likely to induce housing instability than smaller owners.
The authors also observed that eviction filings were associated with certain neighborhood characteristics. Rental homes located in neighborhoods with a higher percentage of black residents were more likely to experience an eviction filing. The neighborhoods with the highest rate of eviction filings tended to be predominantly black neighborhoods, though some were racially integrated or Hispanic neighborhoods. Rental homes in neighborhoods with a higher percentage of residents without a bachelor’s degree were also more likely to experience an eviction filing.
The authors found relatively small but statistically significant relationships between certain property characteristics and eviction filings. Older single-family homes and those with lower appraised land and structure values were somewhat more likely to experience eviction filings.
Corporate Landlords, Institutional Investors, and Displacement: Eviction Rates in Single-Family Rentals is at: http://bit.ly/2ixP1Aa